CVF-NEWS

Diebold audit, certification on Jan. 15 voting panel agenda

January 14, 2004

Hi Folks,

This Thursday, January 15 the Secretary of State's Voting Systems Panel
will meet in Sacramento to discuss the status of Diebold and its voting systems
in California.

A lot has happened over the past month and I thought CVF-NEWS subscribers
would like a recap of developments in advance of Thursday's meeting, which
is open to the public and will begin at 10:00 a.m. at the Secretary of State's
office at 11th and O Streets in downtown Sacramento.

Back in October 2003, Diebold sought state certification of its newest voting
machine, the Accuvote-TSx, a lighter version of its current model, the Accuvote-TS,
used in Alameda and Plumas counties. But just before certification was taken
up by the Secretary of State's Voting System Panel (VSP), the Secretary of
State's office learned that Diebold had installed an uncertified version
of its software into Alameda's voting system prior to California's historic,
October 7 recall election.

State law (Election code section 19213) requires vendors to notify the Secretary
of State in writing whenever a change or modification is sought, and the
Secretary of State must determine whether the change is significant enough
to require reexamination. Vendors are also required to supply a copy of current
software versions to the Secretary of State to keep in an escrow account.

Because Diebold's actions in Alameda were a violation of state law, the
Secretary of State ordered an audit of all 17 California counties using Diebold
voting equipment, which includes touchscreen as well as paper-based optical
scan systems. Preliminary results of that audit were released at the December
15, 2003 VSP meeting.

The audit found that Diebold had installed uncertified versions of software
or firmware in all 17 counties it services in California. In five counties,
the audit showed that the versions of software Diebold reported to auditors
that the counties were using were not the same versions as the auditors found
in use in those counties. In three counties, including Los Angeles, which
used Diebold touchscreens for early absentee voting, the software used was
not only uncertified by the state but was not approved by the federal government,
either.

Had the recall election been close it is likely California would have experienced
a Florida-style meltdown in the days and weeks following the October 7 election;
hundreds of thousands of ballots were transacted electronically on Diebold
touchscreen machines for which there is currently no voter verified paper
backup of the ballots. Without a voter verified paper trail voters are wholly
dependent on vendors and counties to faithfully follow the certification
laws and requirements. If those laws are not followed, and there is no voter
verified paper ballot to fall back on when questions about the integrity
of voting software arise, then the public and candidates have no way to independently
verify that reported election results are accurate.

Diebold representatives insisted at the last meeting that the changes in
the uncertified software versions used were cosmetic and insignificant; the
Secretary of State's continuing audit will hopefully reveal whether this
is true or not.

Despite Diebold's sloppy practices and failure to follow the state's most
essential certification rules, the registrars of voters from four counties — Kern,
San Joaquin, Solano and San Diego — are still hoping to use thousands
of Diebold's new machine, the TSx in the upcoming March 2 primary election.

However, shortly after the December 16 meeting, it was discovered that the
TSx machine lacks federal approval. While it has been tested by federal labs,
no authority at the federal level has yet given the TSx the stamp of approval
and issued a "qualified number" indicating that the machine is
federally approved.

The state granted conditional certification of the TSx based on the presumption
that the machine had been federally approved, and had been tested to the
2002 federal voting system standards, rather than the older, and out-of-date
1990 standards. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that the TSx machine
also has not been completely tested to the 2002 standards as was indicated
by the vendor.

We will find out on Thursday what the next step will be for the TSx and
for Diebold. The Secretary of State's Voting System Panel could either withdraw
conditional certification and in effect decertify the TSx; or allow the conditional
certification to stand; or fully certify the TSx; or decertify Diebold altogether.
That last option, as extreme as it is, is not out of the question. At the
last VSP meeting Secretary of State Kevin Shelley appeared before the committee
and stated that while he hoped the final audit results would not indicate
the need to decertify Diebold, if the final audit results indicate gross
discrepancies and violations, he's "prepared to go down that road."

Amazingly, three of the four counties hoping to use the TSx — Kern,
San Joaquin and Solano — have already taken delivery of thousands of
these machines despite the fact that they lack federal approval or full state
certification. San Diego is planning to spend $30 million on 10,000 TSx machines.
Solano county's supervisors made a smart move this week and approved a backup
plan to use their optical scan voting system if the TSx is decertified; the
other counties would be wise to make alternate plans as well, since there's
no guarantee the TSx will be federally approved in time for the March primary.